Monthly Archives: March 2012

“In need of more than just a shot of Botox or a facelift, our nation’s infrastructure requires an extreme makeover.” Just as soon as I stop laughing at that ridiculous statement, I’m gonna get scared.

The rapidly deteriorating state of our country’s infrastructure is front and center in the March issue of Free Enterprise, a publication by the United States Chamber of Commerce. This article discusses our infrastructure, from inland waterways to energy transmission to transportation. None seem to be a priority, especially when you consider the fact that “U.S. Infrastructure has plummeted from No. 1 to No. 15 in the World Economic Forum’s economic competitiveness ranking.”

As an avid sports fan and business owner, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’m naturally competitive. I am, and I don’t like our country’s precipitous fall. Let’s turn it around!

In Olathe, Kansas, those thrown rocks turned into a huge recoating project when the city planned to coat their 4.5 million-gallon standpipe, called Black Bob 2. Because the tank is located in a busy city park, some of the town’s youngsters threw rocks at it, chipping off the paint and causing corrosion and undercutting.

Induron worked with Olathe’s project engineer to develop specifications, evaluate adhesion of the existing coating system and apply test patches. We ultimately decided to completely recoat the entire tank exterior, which also required removal of the old coating by abrasive blast cleaning.

We were excited to work with Leher Painting in Arkansas – a company who had never used Induron products before. After an initial product evaluation, they were completely satisfied with our Induron Perma-Gloss Fluorourethane, placed the order and began application.

During that application, chips from rocks weren’t the only problem with the tank. Painters discovered that the bottom two rings of the tank interior had significant corrosion. While on site, Leher Painting abrasive blasted and applied Induron Ceramapure TL70 Ceramic-Modified, NSF epoxy. This high-build coating was applied in two coats at an average dry film thickness of 25 mils, which is twice the average thickness of a conventional 3-coat NSF epoxy system.

City officials and engineers in Olathe were pleased with the final result of the newly coated tank. Now if we could just find a solution for those rock-throwing boys…

Induron Coatings would like to be one of the first to congratulate William Grant & Sons for their recent innovative breakthrough. Sure, their “2011 Distiller of the Year Award” they recently won at the International Wine and Spirit Competition is great, but I’m talking about their “green” breakthrough.

The distillery recently generated enough energy in-house to power their whole operation. That’s right, not only do they distill award-winning spirits, they do it completely “off-the-grid!” Read about it in the February 2012 edition of WE&T(scroll down for the article).

This type of innovation should be advantageous to William Grant & Sons economically from both an operations AND marketing perspective, and should also serve as an inspiration to the rest of us in both private and public business to go “green” where we can.

Induraguard 9200 provides you with five mechanisms of barrier protection. We’ve always provided you with surface tolerant, self-priming, single-component, sustainably designed and easy-to-use products, but when that’s not enough, Induron’s formulators decided to raise the bar even higher by incorporating five overlapping barrier features:

10-12 mils DFT of resin hardens by oxidation to provide the first barrier against rain, salt fog and air-borne pollution.

The micaceous iron oxide pigment, which is lamellar in shape, gives the outermost layer a “labyrinth-effect” barrier protection.

If the moisture eventually gets around the tortuous path of the micaceous iron oxide, it will react with the zinc dust (another pathway impeding pigment) to form…

…oxides, that will further fill up the voids in the coating and make the film an even better barrier than before.

The ceramic microspheres add the fifth different shape and size to the pigment mix, and also help with the edge retention of the coating.

What does all this show? Don’t settle for less, when the best is available from Induron!

Founded in 1947, Induron manufactures high performance coatings that serve a range of industrial applications, including the wastewater, transmission and distribution and groundwater storage industries. Learn more about us at www.Induron.com.

Here at Induron Coatings, we have been specifying stripe coats and contrasting colors in multi-coat systems for years as a way to enhance the quality of coating systems.

I don’t know that we originated the idea, but it’s good when other professionals confirm this commonsense approach as one way to help inspectors and owners get a quality coating job. This article from Materials Performance entitled, “The Silent Inspector – Specifying Color to Assist in Inspection,” does just that.

You know you need a really great and unique coating. The coating has to be applied by guys who have climbed to the top of your high-voltage electric transmission towers, which may even be energized, and perform surface preparation and coatings application while climbing the structure (very high degree of difficulty and dangerous).

Since SSPC-SP2 Hand Tool Cleaning is often the only practical and cost-effective method of surface preparation, your coating must have excellent surface wetting and penetration of rusted substrates and good adhesion to galvanized steel, as well as rusty carbon steel. Continue reading How to Specify the Best Possible Tower Paint→

As a former Army Tanker with the 1st Battalion 64th Armor Desert Rogues,this article in Paint Square News caught my eye. Researchers at the University of Texas have developed a coating for Army tanks that mimics the “mirage effect” often seen in deserts.

This could greatly benefit our Armed Forces, especially in desert conditions. And of course, I believe that anything that helps make a tank harder to find for our enemies is a good thing. I hope that this technology continues to be developed and, of course, is only available to the U.S. and our allies.

Flip a switch and a light goes on, turn up your thermostat and your house gets warm. Magic, right! But how does the energy get from the power plants or oil fields to your home?

Whether it’s a transmission line or a gas and oil pipeline, there’s got to be a way for that energy to reach you – it’s a requirement in today’s world. Sometimes the “old” way that energy is transported, either by pipe lines or power lines, is actually “greener” than the alternative. What do I mean? Conventional means of power transmission actually result in a smaller carbon footprint than shipping, rail and especially trucking. It might seem counterintuitive, but a lot in life is. Continue reading Good sentiments about being realistic with energy transmission→

In this crazy year of politics (that’s really just getting going!), I was enthused by the title of this article in Paint Square from the SSPC: “DOT Budget Plan Built on Infrastructure.”

However, I was more than a little disappointed when I saw that $47B was going towards High Speed Trains, and $108B towards “affordable, sustainable, and efficient transit options.” I thought that’s what High Speed Trains were for? And don’t forget, that B stands for Billion… as in $1,000,000,000.I just hope that the Federal Government is willing to spend at least as much on our aging water and wastewater systems!